


Heart at War With Your Head

by Fangirlingmanaged



Series: The Note [6]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Guilt, Hurt Steve Rogers, Hurt Tony Stark, Introspection, M/M, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, references to Greek mythology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:29:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23740846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fangirlingmanaged/pseuds/Fangirlingmanaged
Summary: Steve didn't realize how many promises he was breaking to keep another.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: The Note [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/105272
Comments: 3
Kudos: 78





	Heart at War With Your Head

**Author's Note:**

> It's Sad Stevie-Boy hours.  
> i'll fix it. 
> 
> Referenced Poem is Hurt by Langston Hughes

Steve has learned enough about pain to know the difference between the ache that he has felt every minute of his life and the utter devastation he feels as soon as the quinjet leaves the cold siberian tundra with a half-delirious best friend and knocked out terrorist tied up to a support beam. He had thought it hurt to lose his Ma and never have known his Pa, had thought it was painful to be teased and bullied because he was sickly and small and half an orphan. He had thought he knew pain when he lost Bucky on that train, or when he realized that despite his best efforts and his highest hopes, he would never get to have that dance with Peggy. He should have known it had only ever been increments of pain, like the universe was testing him one grain of sand at a time until it broke his back with the pain.

Tony had equated him to Atlas, once, in the quiet early light of a vigorous and perfect morning. With his curls on Steve’s chest and his shop-roughened hands playing with Steve’s long artist fingers like he used to do when he was  _ content _ . When he used to say that Steve helped to quiet the anger and the pain and the fear in his head; all the equations and plans that made him the futurist he was but left him exhausted and shaking at times. Back in those days, when they were free and  _ happy _ , Tony used to equate him to legends. Used to tease and call him Zelus when he went out and fought the press, kissed him on the cheek and murmured Eleos against his skin when he championed a small-time criminal who was just trying to get by, whispered that he was every Charis in one when he presented Tony with something he had made in the studio the made had made him in the penthouse.

But sometimes, when Steve was down in the gym for too long, or he went on a run that left Sam in his dust and returned three hours and way too many miles later, Tony would call him Atlas when they were laying in bed together unable to let each other go. It was a burden they shared, though Steve could never bring himself to call him a hypocrite. They both thought it was their responsibility to keep the whole world safe, and after his fall, Tony thought the whole  _ universe _ was on his shoulders. Stil, he had called  _ Steve _ Atlas when he tried to convince him to take a break. Every time he went out on another mission for what was left of SHIELD even though his soul wasn’t in it anymore, every time he tried another failed training session with his new friends, every time he left Tony with a quick kiss and an even hastier goodbye to follow another cold lead to find his best friend. 

_ You have to put the world down, sometimes, Atlas,  _ and even though he had sounded teasing at the time with hindsight Steve can now hear the disappointment in his voice. The hidden sadness in his voice when they were separated for days, weeks, and on more occasions than Steve is comfortable admitting,  _ months _ . Though he had never, not once, said anything to keep him home when he was so adamant in looking for Bucky, Tony must have been thinking of the promise Steve had once made him. God, he had said he was  _ different from the rest _ and even though he hasn’t been in this future long, he knows a placebo when he hears it. He had meant at the time, and it burned like acid in his gut to think that maybe everyone else who left Tony had meant it at some point too, yet he had still walked away. The one thing Tony had asked,  _ begged _ without words, and he had let him down too. 

Now, sitting alone in a crumbling church somewhere in Scotland, he recalls what he had once told Tony. Back when they sat curled up together in a loveseat in Tony’s library, Steve’s head on his shoulder, and one of Tony’s many classics in his hands as they learned together. Though he hated magic, Tony had always had a soft spot for the gods, in their imperfect hubris of thinking themselves everlasting. It always made Steve smile when Tony compared him to one of the gods, though he tended to steer towards the “good ones.” One day, though, Steve had caught the description of one of the goddesses that, now that he has had time to reevaluate and confront himself with, he thinks might fit him to a T. Atë, the goddess of misfortune, guilt, infatuation and obsession. His downfalls, all for the world to see now that he had left havoc in Germany, two broken hearts in Siberia, and had become a criminal. 

Tony would hate him,  _ even more _ , if he knew him to be having those thoughts. In the spring, when they were out under the willow at the back of the compound and Tony was telling him about the myth of Persephone, he had compared them to both. 

“I’m in league with the dead, Steve,” Tony had said with a tired smile. “I’ve cheated my time way too long, and every time I think I’ve finally run out of cheap tricks, it turns out that I still have one more, but I keep… causing death regardless. I bring people down with me when I fall, always, but you…” he had turned to give Steve one of his sad beautiful smiles. Tony was always beautiful, even when he was melancholy like that, and Steve both loved and hated to see that smile in the light of late afternoon. “Kissing you for the first time was like getting a taste of Spring. You make me feel like I can change, even after all this time.” 

Steve had kissed him, then, hard and desperately. He had wanted to erase those thoughts from his lover’s head because Tony? In that darkness? He would never have allowed it. Tony was light and ingenuity and kindness and the exhilarating feeling of  _ possibility.  _ Tony loved better and more resilient than anyone Steve had ever had the pleasure of knowing. It was awful that he couldn’t see that, but Steve had vowed to be there to make sure he had someone to remind him. 

Now, he bowed his head in an old church miles away from the man who should have had him at his back. He still can’t wrap his head around the thoughts and decisions that had led him here. After running with Buck, he’d had very little time to sit down and just  _ think _ about the choices he had made. After leaving with T’Challa, it had been about settling Bucky with Shuri, and then worry about the others in the Raft, then it had come to worry about being followed once he’d sprung them out, then Scott had left, then Clint, and then  _ Natasha _ had said she had something she needed to do and he had been  _ so _ angry. 

_ You were supposed to stay with me,  _ he’d thought angrily. Yeah, he had always been a goddamn hypocrite. 

It had left him with very little time to wallow in destruction of his choices. Now, though, they’ve had a few quiet weeks. Natasha is back, and sharing the responsibility of keeping Wanda in line. Sam is there, always, a constant calm presence even in his lowest moments. The phone in his pocket never rings, and that is another stab of guilt in his heart. The letter that meant nothing, the useless hunk of junk that would never fulfill the promise he’d made his lover, the unsaid love he couldn’t give his family… all of it had started crashing down on him in the last few weeks. 

Yet there was nothing for him to do. Talking with Nat and Sam didn’t help; nothing they said would ever sound sincere when the guilt choked them all. He would never dare to speak any of this with Wanda, for respect to her grief and caution of her anger. Tony had never even been allowed to make amends. There was only, as always, the next mission. Nobody cared if Steve Rogers could get back up this time, the legends had always said that Cap sprung back up with blood on his teeth, and so he  _ must.  _

_ Who cares _

_ About the hurt in your heart?  _ He thinks, bitterly. 

_ Make a song like this _

_ For a jazz band to play: _

_ Nobody cares. _

_ Nobody cares. _

_ Make a song like that _

_ From your lips.  _

“Steve,” Natasha’s voice comes from the entrance of the church. He turns and sees that she’s in her gear. The one Tony made. Another mission, then. “Wanda hasn’t checked in.” 

Steve sighs, world tired, but gets up nonetheless. “Anything on the news?” He asks because even though they’d talked about this till they were red in the face, Wanda is still green and slightly reckless. And Vision has proven that he would never raise a hand to hurt or seriously stop her. 

“Nothing, but I have a bad feeling about this. So does Sam,” she says quietly. Steve can’t help but agree with her. The last few weeks have been too quiet, and as they’ve tracked the news and consulted with T’Challa on occasion, Tony has been spreading himself thin since they’ve been gone. Sooner or later something has to give. 

Steve opens his mouth to say something, when a buzzing noise comes from his pocket. His eyes near pop out of his head as he feels the burner phone vibrating against his thigh. Natasha’s mouth is open in surprise, and that’s enough to tell him that he’s not imagining this. The phone that he sent Tony has finally been put to use. 

“Hello?” His voice shakes as he answers.  _ Let me hear your voice, sweetheart _ , he thinks desperately. 

“Steve?” But it’s not Tony on the other end of the line. It’s a voice he hadn’t thought he would ever hear again in his life. He almost drops the phone in surprise, and hears the scientist on the other end begin to sound panic. “Steve?! Hello?! God, why was he carrying something this  _ old _ \--”

“Bruce?” Natasha’s eyes widen with surprise and something Steve doesn’t dare name. “How did you get this phone? What’s happening?” 

“We don’t have time for this right now. Do you know where Vision is?”

“Vision? Yes, he’s with Wanda,” Steve says, not even thinking about his responses. Natasha runs out of the church at that, already ahead of Steve. He trusts her to get Sam and the jet ready while he gets his answers from Bruce.

“You need to go get him and bring him home. He’s in danger! Tony said you’d know how to track him down.” 

“Where’s Tony?” He asks in a smile voice, the pit of his stomach sinking. “Bruce, how did you get this phone?” 

“He--He said to get you. He’s… I’m sorry, Steve, he’s gone,” Bruce’s voice is tight with sadness and worry. Steve’s knees buckle under him and he has to hold on to a pew to not sink into the ground. He knows, he  _ knows _ , that if he falls on his knees there he’s never getting back up. Not from this. 

“Keep the phone with you,” Steve says in a voice he can’t even recognize. “We’ll get Vision and get stateside.” 

“Steve-” Bruce’s voice disappears when Steve slams the phone shut. He bows his head and allows himself three angry breaths. Tears slip down his cheeks and make dark splotches on the dusty ground of the church. 

Then he raises his head, and Captain America walks out of the church. Whatever disaster is out there won’t wait for his heart to finish shattering. It won’t let him curl into a cocoon and never get back out. The world, the  _ universe,  _ won’t care for the fact that his lover is gone God knows where after he failed to protect him. 

_ Nobody cares.  _

**Author's Note:**

> So, the references (there's more likely hella inaccuracies, but ya know, bear with me):  
> Zelus- The god of dedication  
> Eleos- the goddess of mercy, pity, compassion, and clemency  
> Charis (s)/Charites (pl): The graces  
> Atlas- founder of astronomy. Burdened to carry the weight of the cosmos on his shoulders.  
> Hades- one of the 12 olympians. god of the underworld and the dead. At some point, also associated with wealth.  
> Persephone- goddess of spring growth.


End file.
